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Letters to the Editor
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Veterinary pharmacy
Some patients have more legs than others
From Professor A. Michell
It was pleasing to see veterinary news on the front page of the PJ and
to read Veterinary Pharmacist (PDF 1 MB), which accompanied the PJ on
25 June. Unfortunately, it reinforced rather than diminished the concerns
which I expressed in
the PJ, some 15 months ago, and which have grown in the interim. In fact
Veterinary Pharmacist unintentionally symbolises the position of the subject
within the Royal Pharmaceutical Society: it is still perceived as a supplement,
not a mainstream activity.
It would be wrong to repeat the detailed arguments which I set out previously.
The essence of the problem is this: veterinary pharmacy has legitimately
been, hitherto, an additional interest for those wishing to engage in it — mainly
in farm animals and horses.
The new momentum provided by the Government derives mainly from something
entirely different — the wish to extend the “scientist in the
high street” argument, with community pharmacists as a further source
of advice on zoonoses etc. That relates predominantly, as indeed veterinary
medicine increasingly does, to companion animals.
The problem, since few pharmacists have received the necessary training,
is to bridge the gap for existing pharmacists and avoid the same gap in
the curriculum of future graduates.
The boost for the diploma is welcome and will contribute to future competence,
but only for a small minority of pharmacists. It will not help patients
whose freshly written veterinary prescription arrives at their nearest “scientist
in the high street”, only to find that they have no relevant experience
or training to offer. What does the customer do next? Take it to another
town? Take it back to the vet? See if another vet will dispense it? Very
helpful to the patient awaiting its medication! The news of collaborative
projects between vets and pharmacists is welcome but an essential dimension
of both rapid and long term progress is the provision of supplementary
training for veterinary nurses to equip them to become potent members of
the pharmacy team.
It is, however, deeply depressing to read that the Veterinary Medicines
Directorate is content to leave the attainment of competence to the ethical
commitment of the individual pharmacist to CPD and supplementary training.
They cannot be serious! The “unique selling point” of any health
care profession is the competence conferred by its training and the benefit
which this brings to patients. Suppose we had a new category of specialist
paediatric pharmacists. Would patient protection be relegated to no more
than their own say-so that they had the necessary competence? The issue
is neither abstract nor abstruse. Further evidence of the self-confessed
inadequacy of most pharmacists training regarding companion animals is
reported in the same edition of VP. Moreover, in a profession so overstretched
in fulfilling its commitments to human patients that it is highly dependent
on locums, how will the time be found for supplementary training? Granted
the intensifying and legitimate demands for professional revalidation,
post-Shipman, how long could any profession conceal the fact that in a
major area of their responsibility, there is nothing to revalidate? The
attendance at the forthcoming veterinary pharmacy conference will provide
an interesting test of the water.
But the fundamental issue is for the Society and so far its response has
been to procrastinate. The Government remit for the expanded role of pharmacists
in dispensing veterinary prescriptions will never be attainable until veterinary
pharmacy is a core subject in the undergraduate curriculum. These prescriptions
will be arriving on pharmacy counters shortly. Yet the Society’s
response to the necessary curricula change has been to postpone it into
a more wide-ranging review. Let us be clear on this issue — the role
of the Society is not to promote trading opportunities for a minority of
pharmacists. It is two-fold: to facilitate the implementation of Government
policy for the supply of veterinary medicines but, more important and more
permanent, to secure the interests of patients. That obligation is not
absolved by the fact that some patients have more legs than others.
Bob Michell
Member of Council
Royal Pharmaceutical Society |
The
Pharmaceutical Journal